Poison Heart
by staringatstars07
Summary: When Shimada the younger was taken, stolen away in the night as though the spirits waiting beyond the veil had grown impatient, a collective howl reverberated through the blood and bones of the remaining Overwatch members- Never again.


**There's a fascinating AU on tumblr by Sarcasticasides that features Genji being hacked by Sombra and forced to fight for Talon. I've tweaked that idea a little bit, making it more that Sombra impulsively abducted him, with Reaper grudgingly tagging along just in case things backfire, but the gist is the same.**

* * *

When Shimada the younger was taken, stolen away in the night as though the spirits waiting beyond the veil had grown impatient, a collective howl reverberated through the blood and bones of the remaining Overwatch members-

 _Never again._

But though their initial instinct was to charge, guns blazing, into the nearest verified Talon base, and rip, rend, tear through the armaments like paper until they got their cyborg ninja back, Morrison called for cooler heads. "We mess this up now because we're not thinking straight," he warned them, "and we'll never get him back."

He thought they might not hear him over the sound of his own heart raging in his ears, the crackle and roar of fire racing through his veins.

They ended up compromising with a four-man team – Mercy, in case things went south and Genji needed a healer who could decipher the tangled mess of organic and inorganic matter he was composed of. McCree, because he'd known the ninja since Blackwatch and could form a counter to his moves if it turned out it was too late and the cyborg was already compromised. And Hanzo, for reasons similar to McCree, except with the added bonus that if they attempted to leave him behind, the archer would undoubtedly storm the base without them.

And if he was going either way, Morrison decided he'd much rather have him, his skills, and especially his dragons, on their team.

* * *

"McCree, get down!" Acting on instinct and self-preservation, the cowboy threw himself to the cement floor, ducking his head to keep the massive scaled body floating over him from separating it from his shoulders. Still, he smelled burning before the creature's tail passed as it rose to skim the ceiling of the underground bunker they'd traced Genji to, and threw the stetson down to see the top of his favorite hat was smouldering and black.

After rolling to avoid the volley of purple-tipped shuriken aimed unerringly at his sprawled form, the cowboy jumped to his feet, turning on the archer staring sheepishly at the dissipating dragons with an indignant shout of, "Why do you even summon those overgrown lizards if they're just gonna get deflected and come after _us?!_ "

Not daring to stay still for long, they broke into a run, cheating death by mere inches as the gleaming tips chewed and bit at their bodies without doing any real damage. The hardest target to hit was a moving one, after all. "Why do you use bullets," Hanzo sniped back once Genji paused to replenish his supply of projectiles, "if you miss?"

McCree's jaw-dropped, eyes going wide like the archer had just insulted his mother, "I don't miss!"

To their equal displeasure, Morrision's gravelly voice crackled over the comm, _Don't think just because we're on a mission I won't come over there and knock your heads together._

He was right, of course, but even admitting that internally made both the archer and the cowboy's expression's twist like they'd bitten into fruit and found it rotten. Still, Hanzo took stock of the situation. They were standing at the edge of a former bomb shelter leftover from the worst of the Omnic Crisis. It'd been a Talon base for some time, but after Overwatch had raided and eliminated any resistance they'd encountered, it'd been listed officially as neutralized. Which was why it made for the perfect place for Reaper and his accomplice to hide while carrying out abductions unsanctioned by their own organization.

The enemy agents were positioned further in, the far wall at their backs while Genji handled the brunt of the fighting.

While McCree and Hanzo were handicapped by a reluctance to harm the cyborg, their main role wasn't to incapacitate him, but to distract him long enough for Mercy to position herself and fire a device onto his core that should pump enough volts of electricity into his systems to trigger an emergency shutdown. His vitals would remain functional, as they automatically switched to a secondary battery, but it would halt his movements long enough for Morrison to destroy the remote in the Talon hacker's hands without fear of the shot being deflected.

Whatever remote she was using – Sombra was what Reaper had called her – it was strangely shaped, yet oddly familiar. Hanzo kept trying to steal glances at it, until she finally noticed, and briefly ceased Genji's assault so she could proudly show off the game controller. It, like most of her wardrobe and Genji's own armor, glowed softly with light purple highlights. However, besides that customization, it was a perfectly average controller, with joysticks and everything.

She looked so pleased, like a kid with a shiny new toy.

It was then that the surreality of the situation - Reaper watching from a distance with his arms crossed disapprovingly over his chest, Genji standing frozen, unable to move according to his will, and the cowboy fighting alongside him– finally got to Hanzo.

It started with a low snort, a chuckle, and then he tossed his head back, laughing fully and without restraint. McCree watched in disbelief as he clutched his stomach, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. "He's – haha – hooked up like one of those infernal gaming cubes he used to play!" He made a few feeble attempts to wipe at his eyes but couldn't quite manage to compose himself.

Due to being frozen and rendered mute, Genji couldn't exactly voice his opinion on the matter, but McCree imagined whatever his thoughts were, it was probably best for everyone that he keep them to himself.

Wary of the elder Shimada's outburst, McCree said with a hint of nervousness tainting his Southern drawl, "Darlin', I can't tell if ya think this is all that amusing or if you're having a breakdown, but maybe you could save it for after we get your brother back to normal?"

Sombra, on the other hand, was delighted to finally find someone who could appreciate the extent of her genius. She glided over with the remote held aloft, ignoring Reaper's protests. "You want to try it for yourself?" She asked Hanzo earnestly.

For his part, the archer actually seemed to consider it.

 _Hanzo!_

Though they each suppressed a wince at Mercy's scandalized rebuke, Hanzo did his best to pretend he hadn't heard as he reached for the controller. "It's a tempting thought," he muttered, rotating the sleekly designed device in his calloused hands, a grin gradually spreading across his face, "but I'm going to have to decline." And he smashed the remote on the ground, sending shards of black plastic skittering over the ground. "Such things were his amusements, not mine."

Between the recent bout of laughter and the relief smoothing out his features, Hanzo looked like a much younger man when he looked over her shoulder to see if Genji had been freed, only to harden when his brother remained still, his LED pulsing the lavender that signaled he was still under her control.

"Aw." Sombra pouted. "That sure would have been a shame…" Mischief sparking in her violet eyes, she quickly increased the distance between herself and Hanzo, placing herself safely behind Genji when she gleefully revealed the second controller strapped to her hip, "if that were my only one."

Lifting a manicured finger to the ceiling, she crowed, "Let's see what this button does," and then slammed it down on a trigger located in the center of the controller. And Genji screamed, the sound blending with the roar of his dragon as it was forcibly summoned, dragged out of him as though torn from his soul.

The Dragon writhed in manic circles, appearing sickly, frantic and, as Hanzo quickly realized with mounting horror, entirely out of Genji's control. He didn't summon it, couldn't channel it, couldn't stop it. All he could do was watch helplessly as his body directed the beast towards his friend and brother.

The bunker was too narrow. They'd known this from the beginning, known that using the dragons would be a risk, but now there was nowhere for McCree to go, no way for him to avoid the gaping maw charging towards him.

Accepting that this was the end of the line but refusing to go quietly, McCree raised the barrel of his revolver to the beast and cocked the hammer, only to have his head roughly shoved down as Hanzo vaulted over him to take the brunt of the rampaging dragon's fury. Tendrils of blue curled from the archer's tattoo as the ethereal creature passed through him, desperate to preserve the archer's life above all else, and in that, the Dragons within him succeeded. For when Genji's dragon, after twisting and thrashing in directionless madness for a moment longer, dissipated back into the ether, Hanzo was still standing.

He stood with his teeth bared, lips curled in back in defiance of the smoke curling from his ruined flesh. There were patches of his skin that had blackened to char, becoming flaky and painful as they threatened to peel away to reveal the wet, crimson muscle and stark white bone beneath. Nearly half of his scalp was exposed and smoking, smelling sharply of burnt hair. Deep gouges decorated his arms and shoulders, but the same flame that had melted and fused the fabric of his gi to his chest cauterized them, meaning blood loss, at the very least, was not a concern.

Shock, on the other hand, very much was. The body wasn't meant to keeping on ticking after enduring what had to be about the physical equivalent of being mauled by a bear and then tossed into a furnace.

Stormbow remained in his grasp, bonded to his palm by the heat. With a thrill of cold horror, McCree realized the archer couldn't have released the weapon if he wanted to.

He'd always known the archer was stubborn, but seeing Hanzo standing tall and proud despite the second and third-degree burns eating away at him brought that assessment to a whole new level. "Angela," he whispered fiercely into the comm while Hanzo's lungs heaved, as he fought with every ounce of strength remaining to choke down enough air to stay conscious, "we need healing down here and stat."

Gliding past Genji, who was locked in a crouch with his sword drawn, forcing him to stare at the ruin his Dragon had left behind, and ignoring Reaper's protests, Sombra closed the distance between them, bringing herself close enough to brush her long nails over the seared flesh of Hanzo's raw and exposed scalp. "Those cool pets of yours sure don't mess around," she winked at the hatred burning in the Shimada's dark eyes, "though I don't need to tell you that, do I?" Taking stock of the true extent of what had been done to him, she commented lightly, "I've heard it said that they don't harm the wielder's allies. But I guess he doesn't exactly see you as a friend, carino." With a high laugh, she added, "Can you really blame him?"

There was a sound of a hammer cocking, and she glanced to the side to see the gun pressed against the side of her head curtained by waves of lavender-tinted hair, "Darlin', it ain't in my nature to shoot a lady, but ya might wanna back it up a bit."

Sparing the gunslinger little more than an irritated glance, the hacker continued in honeyed tones, "You'll die if you don't get some attention soon, or at the very least, you'll never fight again." She paused, allowing that to sink in, staring straight into his eyes so she could see the instant the fear hit. "Why don't you let Talon fix you up?" Flashing the circuitry running the length of her arm like veins as she gently framed his cheek, she crooned, "I'm always in the market for new friends."

Though poised to pump lead into her brain, McCree found himself hesitating. There was no better way to judge the strength of a man's character than when he was faced with an ultimatum, and more than anyone else, Hanzo needed to know what kind of a man he truly was.

Since it was difficult to move, Hanzo flicked his gaze to Genji, taking in the subtle tremor shaking his limbs, the occasional flash of green as his human heart battled for control. Though Talon had robbed him of speech, Hanzo could almost hear his screaming.

Decision made, he briefly closed his eyes, then snarled and lunged for the second controller. Howvever, Sombra had predicted that he might try to take it, and danced gleefully out of the way, then threw up a quick shield herself from the barrage of rapid-fire bullets McCree sent after her. She lifted the control high, taunting them. There was a flurry of movement from the rafters, a flash of light, and then a crack of lead hitting plastic as the controller was flung from her grasp and shattered by the bullet's impact.

McCree glanced sharply at the ceiling to see Angela lying down over a beam, her pistol still trained on Sombra. After acknowledging her with a nod, he stooped to gingerly swing the archer's arm around his neck. The man didn't fight him, didn't make a sound. Whether it was a mercy or a very bad sign, it seemed he'd passed out shortly after hitting the ground.

Next, a device designed to look like a mechanical spider dropped down onto Genji's shoulder, latched on tightly, and proceeded to send the exact amount of voltage necessary to overload his system without damaging his internal organs. He collapsed, his lights dim and flickering, until finally they flared to life, a brilliant, vibrant green.

Pulse rifle drawn and ready, 76 leapt between Reaper and the rebooting cyborg, "Take one step near him, Reyes, and I'll kill you as many times as it takes."

Unimpressed by the threat, Reaper scoffed, opting to ignore him entirely as he turned to walk towards the back exit, "Come on, Sombra, you had your fun. It's time to go."

She peeked over her shoulder, conflict plain in her thinly pursed lips and furrowed brows, but in the end, she knew when the costs of staying behind outweighed the benefits. "On the bright side," she said as she inputted a code through the keypad on her wrist, allowing the surrounding scenery to wrap and fold around her. It fell away like water an instant later when she zoomed forward to leave the unconscious Shimada with one last taunt, "you and your brother have something to bond over now." And flicked him on the nose. "Boop!"

When she zipped along to follow the cloud of black mist heading for the door, McCree wanted to shoot her. He really did. But with 76 carefully positioning Genji so that he could support the majority of his weight, much like he'd done with Hanzo, the battle was clearly over. That didn't stop Mercy from keeping her pistol trained on her retreating form until the hacker was out of range, her pretty features cold and tight with narrowly restrained fury.

He watched without comment as Morrison called back to Watchpoint, demanding that Tracer and Lucio come as quickly as they could manage with a pair of stretchers and enough sedatives to put down a small horse. Meanwhile, Angela completed her scan of Genji's systems. He felt his spirits lift considerably when she declared him free and clear of any corrupted or intrusive data, but given the state of the elder Shimada, it was hard to do more than mirror her tired smile.

Even knowing that Talon had left empty-handed, and that they'd gotten back who they'd come for, he'd be hard-pressed to call this one a victory.


End file.
